jstol3's Blog

For those of you who drive on 71 Hwy on your way to work in the morning and on your way home at night: Every one of you knows that there are traffic lights on that highway. If you don't then you haven't traveled that road before. For those of you who do know about the traffic lights - why are you in such a hurry? I drive that highway every weekday and I watch the rest of you speed, tailgate other drivers, change lanes so abruptly that your cars almost bend in half. You cut into breaks in the traffic that are barely large enough for a motorcycle to squeeze into and then you have to stop because you are now at the tailend of the backup that is caused by other drivers who think that the only way to get to work is to act like driving is a competition instead of a means to get to work.

What are you in such a hurry for? You know the lights are there. Are you in a hurry to stop so you can sit in line burning up the gas you bought with your hard earned money? I just don't get it. If all of you would not only slow down but also keep several car lengths of space between you and the car in front of you you might just keep those long backups at the lights from forming.

Ditto for those heading east on I70 in the evening. You know that those lanes narrow down right before Manchester so why do you race each other until right before the construction area and then have to stop until someone lets you into the other lane, or cause an accident, or literally force your way into the other lane by cutting in front of another car? You should be merging long before the construction area so the traffic flow will be smoother.

I think that at least half the drivers in this area should lose their driving license until they can prove that they have overcome their ignorance of how to drive sensibly!

On October 3rd 2008 the American Congress finally drove a silver spike into the heart of the American electorate by voting the citizen's money into the pockets of the greedy and corrupt financial institutions who made bad loans to ILLEGAL immigrants and who sold low income people on the idea that they could afford to live in mansions. This lunacy was preceeded by the false notion that America and its taxpayers would not be adversely affected by millions of ILLEGAL immigrants being allowed to stream accross its southern border.

R.I.P. America!

They keep trying to frighten us by telling us that credit will dry up and we won't be able to buy anything. The good banks all have money. They make money by lending money to good customers. If you have good credit you will be able to borrow money. The banks are still advertising money to lend. If you have so-so credit you will probably be able to get what you need.

If you have bad credit its time to start tightening your belt and being concientious about paying your bills. If you can't pay your bills don't borrow. Live within your means.

If each of us and if each business lived within our means we would not have the mortgage crisis or the current economic downturn.

A great man once asaid "we have nothing to fear but fear itself'. It is time for us to remember those words and to stop allowing the people who caused our problems to frighten us.

NO BAILOUT FOR THOSE WHO ACTED IRRESPONSIBLY!!!

If Barack Obama gets his way and sex education is taught in second grade who do you think might be the most likely people who would want to teach sex ed to such a young crowd?

Could it possibly be teachers with an inordinate interest in second grade children?

Parents, you need to be thinking about your children on elction day!

Obama certanly would not wish for children to be harmed by early sex ed but that could be an unintended consequence of putting very young children into such an environment and it shows how little Obama is thinking ahead when he suggests some of his programs.

That is why he is not ready to lead!

Kay wrecked the Kansas City economy with her grandose plans and tax giveaways to large corporations.

Why would anyone want to send Kay to Washington to proceed to wreck our country?

On elecion day I urge you to tell Kay that she should retire from public life!

When I was 50 I started a lawn mowing and landscaping business. After a few years the stress of being on my feet all the time began to take it's toll on my feet and knees so I shut the business down and went to work elsewhere. My business still had debts so for the next four years I put my nose to the grindstone and paid off my business debts. I was never late with any payments. I didn't ask anyone for any kind of help to bail me out.

Why can't the wreckers of some of our financial institutions be required to do the same? What makes them better than me or any of the other thousands of families and small business owners who struggle and who make their families and businesses work?

Why should our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren have to struggle with the enourmous burden that this proposed bailout is going to cost us?

This is my personal opinion - that's what I usually offer when I blog. This is not Fox 4's policy and it, in no way, prevents you from blogging the way you want to, ok?

I read blog after blog on this forum that is made up of links to www.blahblah.com or www. #$^!)&%.com or www.snopes.com or www.foad.com . These links don't mean anything to me. They tell me that you read what somebody else wrote and that you believe it. That's all! What do you feel? Why do you feel that way? Do you have a personal stake in what you blog about or are you an ideologue who feels that way out of hand? Do you really think that everything belongs to everyone or do you really believe that everything you earn by the sweat of your brow belongs to you? Do you have a social concience that says that you should give (not have extraced) to the less fortunate? Do you realy think that any American president could be capable of purposely harming the American people? What do you feel? Don't tell us what someone else said!

Stop the violence? Are you kidding? Not in a million years with rallies and prayer vigils! Dr. King's message was communicated effetively through rallies, prayer vigils, and civil disobedience because his people were unjustly opressed by another race.

That tactic is not going to work against crime. This is not unjust oppression by another race. This is rot from within. This is lawlessness run amok because the perpetrators know that their community doesn't want its own citizens to be targeted (racially profiled) and they take advantage of that to be so bold as to drive by someone's house and shoot it up or to kill someone in broad daylight on the street. They take advantage of it and write graffiti on everything in sight. They take advantage of it to openly sell drugs on the streets and they take advantage of it to prostitute themselves openly along Prospect Avenue. They take advantage of it to roll aound town in their vehicles playing loud music which wakes people up in the middle of the night. They take advantage of it to drive like idiots. They take advantage of the law to do crimes because they know that their own community will come to their rescue with cries of "racial profiling, racial profiling" if they are apprehended and prosecuted.

What will work is snitching! What will work is weeding out the rotten apples by turning them in! What will work is encouraging the police to do their job! What will work is the community getting behind law enforcement! When lawlessness is discouraged by actively fighting against it lawlessness can be stopped.

I don't want racial profiling to occur either but I do want crime to be stopped regardless of the ethnicity of the perpetrator!

Today I wa stuck in traffic on 71 Highway heading south. The three traffic lights on 71 had traffic backed up forever. While I was sitting there waiting I was listening to the news on the radio and heard some woman talking about smoking bans - she was saying where people were free to go smoke - she had some connection to the KCMO City Council. I thought to myself - people sit in traffic every day spending wasted hours waiting to get home and while the mayor and city council were elected by the residents of this city to solve problems like this traffic snarl all they can talk about is smoking bans?

Who are these people we elected and where did they learn what the word "problem" means? I don't think they ever drive themselves anywhere.

A while back I wrote to the city traffic people about the traffic signals being un synchronized. All they could offer to tell me was that some of the lights are very old. They didn't seem to want to send anyone out to try to synchronize the lights. I guess that it might be too much work for them.

I tried to contact Mayor Funkhouser about the traffic problems but all I got was a reply from his wife Gloria telling me that she was out of the office ( I never did hear from her when she returned). I didn't want to hear from her anyway - I wanted to hear from the mayor!

I'm not a sucker pig connected to a feeding tube and I'm not going to "suck up" just any junk the companies out there want to dump into the universal feeding tube that we are all supposed to "consume" from. If I'm happy with the product I will buy it - if not I won't.

I suggest that all Americans scrap the word "consumer" and start using the word "customer" again. Consumers are a mindless bunch of zombies (in the eyes of corporate America). Consumers suck up any old slop the companies feed them. Customers think about it, they make choices, they ask questions, they are in charge!

Be a customer, be in charge, make them give you what you want  don't settle for what they offer! If it is not good enough tell them that it's not and tell them that when they live up to your execations you will buy!

Not too long ago I wrote a blog on racial profiling. That blog was prompted by the unusually high homicide rate we are currently experiencing here in Kansas City. This blog is prompted by the same thing and by the solutions which are being proposed by our mayor, Alonzo Washington, Alvin Brooks and yes, our own shrinking violet - chief of police James Corwin. Now its jobs and activities in the community. Give me a break! All of these killings aren't happening because people don't have jobs! (I do believe that everbody who wants to have a job should have one).

These killings are happening because there is a general atmosphere of lawlessness here in Kansas City. The chief of police is selective about what laws his force is going to enforce and which perpetrators he is going to go after. If the perp is black or Hispanic he's not going to enforce because he's afraid of complaints of racial profiling. This means that all of those perps get to stay out on the street and hone their skills and escalate from low level crimes to murder. What the heck - if you were going to get a free pass wouln't you keep on going?

The chief won't enforce the law against panhandling. He won't enforce the noise ordinance against all of these thugs riding around with their boom boxes at maximum volume disturbing everone who is not more than half a mile away. He won't look into the immigration status of persons who are detained by members of his force.

Yes, Kansas City is hard at work trying to find out why the homicide rate is so high and they're trying their level best to find ways to stop it by sticking their heads in the sand so they can avoid noticing the very obvious and very large elephant in the room.

First off - we have never had a free market society in this country. I know from textbooks how a free market society is supposed to work. It's very simple - demand drives supply. When demand is high industry cranks up and furnishes more of a product. If the supply is tight and demand is high the price of a product goes up and only those who can afford to pay are rewarded with acquisition of the product. If supply is abundant prices fall and most are able to acquire that good or service. If the supply of a product is over abundant and demand is non-existant companies producing that product tend to go out of business. There are lots of variables in the supply and demand scenario, so many in fact, that they can't all be listed here.

Today I heard on the news that some people want a "passengers bill of rights" for airline passengers because of long waits in an airplane (nine hours was mentioned) during which passengers were forced to sit on the airplane without refreshments and, in some cases, without access to restrooms. In this scenario the airlines are not showing common sense. If they are going to have to sit on the ground for an extended period of time they should de-plane the passengers until take off is imminent. If the airlines fail to act with common sense in these instances the government should step in. This is not a "free market" issue, this is a common sense issue. The government has the air traffic controllers, it allows or disallows the airlines to choose specific routes and it licenses pilots so if the airlines don't act responsibly and with common sense the government should step in and state just how long an airline can hold passengers without allowing them to de-plane.

There are many on this site who would argue against me who have advanced degrees. I only have an associates degree in political science and economics. I do have a lifetime degree in common sense, however, and I think that, given the present state of affairs, the government should step in.

Unless we have the opportunity to do away with all government regulation and create a true "free market" atmosphere in this country we need to have the government involved (this is not an endorsement of the "nanny state").

Fuel and energy are areas where we must have government intervention. We also need to have government sponsorship of alternatives to fossil fuels. Why? Because the suppliers of fossil fuels do not allow the "free market" to work. They create artificial shortages by withholding production, speculators manipulate the prices, special interest groups impede the development of oil fields and refinery capacity and the fossil fuel companies inhibit the development and distribution of alternative fuels.

I know that I'm going to get some heat from some very intelligent people who have advance degrees who believe that if you just remove all government regulation the free market will work just fine but I have to ask "what if grandma dies because she couldn't afford to heat her home or couldn't afford the fuel for her car to visit the doctor"?

Governments have a responsibility to the citizens of the countries they govern and governments have a  responsibility to the citizens who finance governments through taxation.

I live here. You live here. Chances are that we are both the sons or daughters of immigrants. Mine came from a number of different countrys and I count Native Americans amongst my forefathers.

Prior to the 1980s immigration to this country was strictly controlled. By controlling immigration we fairly successfully kept out disease, criminals, those who would become a public charge and those with questionable morals.

People came here from all over the world - they were vibrant and industrious. They wanted to become Americans and build a better life for themselves and their families. They wanted to learn English, they wanted to assimilate. They wanted to become a part of the greater American culture.

Today we have thousands pouring accross our southern border who are not interested in assimilating. They want to continue with their South American, Mexican, Hispanic culture. They work and yes, they work hard but for low wages, often "under the table", they don't have health insurance, they overburden our hospitals and our welfare system and they lower the standard of living for all Americans. That includes Americans of Hispanic origin. In the short term it may seem that helping these people settle here is a plus for LEGAL Hispanics in the long term they will bring down your standard of living as well.

America just cannot continue to absorb this influx of illegals without all of us paying a very high price

Regardless of who you are or where you or your ancestors came here from I suggest that you re-think any compassion or sympathy you hold for this ILLEGAL invasion from our south because if it continues you might just find yourself living under the same abysmal conditions which you or your forebears attempted to escape.